The Apalachee girls basketball team’s season came to a bitter end Tuesday afternoon as it lost in the first round of the GHSA Region 8-AAAAAA playoffs to Dacula at Dacula High School.
Scoring had been an issue for the Lady Wildcats all year and Tuesday was no exception. They only scored six points in the first quarter and nine points in the entire first half. Their offense was a little better in the second half but not enough to prevent a 46-24 defeat.
“We did what we wanted to do on the floor which was to keep their best player from beating us,” Apalachee coach Gary Compton said. “She only had 6 points; she had 20 the last time. I felt like the shots just weren’t falling for us; it wasn’t our night. We said we weren’t going to let their best player beat us, or their next best, but they’ve got three really good players, probably four or five. So they played hard too and they did what they had to do to win.”
Apalachee (7-18) kept the game close in the first quarter with free throws and great defense. The score after just one quarter was 8-6 and four of Apalachee’s points came from the free throw line. But Dacula adjusted in the second quarter and outscored the Lady Wildcats 13-3. After going to the line three times in the first quarter, Apalachee only had one trip to the free throw line in the second and Cerey Bradford missed one of her shots.
“We came out in a triangle-two, hadn’t used it all year, we had been practicing it,” Compton said. “We said we’d follow their top two all night, pester them and see if we could force some turnovers and not give them good looks. I thought we did that, but we had to switch it up. But it just comes down to use missing shots that we can make. That’s pretty much been the story for us for the last three quarters of the season.
Dacula cranked up its press in the second half and that led to Apalachee turnovers, which led to easy points for the Lady Falcons. They managed to stretch the lead out to 36-16 after the third.
The game cooled down in the fourth quarter as Dacula began pulling starters, but not enough to let Apalachee make a dent in the lead. The Lady Wildcats were still outscored 10-8 in the final period.